Date: October 9, 2016

Donald Trump isn’t unqualified to be president just because of the latest video released on him bragging about sexually assaulting women. He’s already been rendered disqualified for the office of the presidency for multiple other things he has said and done. This video would be enough to disqualify him if it was only the first disgraceful thing released about him. As it stands, the video emphasizes and crystallizes the personality aspects that already disqualify him—his entitlement, his arrogance, his uncontrollable narcissism, his extreme sexism (which already had him spending a week attacking a Miss Universe winner for her alleged weight gain), and his general loutishness and hateful demeanor.

Republican Congressmen who had already put up with him spreading racism, attacking POWs, attacking the families of dead soldiers, attacking female reporters, attacking the profession of journalism, and attacking anyone who ever said anything halfway critical of Trump are starting to finally jump ship. Some have called for Trump to drop out and his vice presidential candidate Mike Pence to be promoted to the top of the ticket. Others have said they will not vote for Trump for president.

Bombs + Dollars has been against Trump since before he won the nomination. We pointed out the very things that made Trump deplorable before much of the GOP finally appeared to realize the problem (or, more likely, before they realized the political problem was so great they could no longer whitewash it). On January 24, I wrote, as a representative of this publication:

Here we have a candidate who threatens to sue newspapers for reporting on his bankruptcies, who said he would “certainly” create a government database of Muslims in America, who incited his fans to physically assault a non-violent protester and said that they were right to do so, defended Putin from charges that he kills political opponents by equivocating the United States with Russia (“Our country does plenty of killing, too”), and his personal account tweets racist messages about “white genocide”. This is all fact. He has done it all. No amount of politically correct denials from Team Trump can change the reality.

Since then, Trump has only added to the list of disqualifying actions.

When Trump won the Republican nomination, Bombs + Dollars reiterated our opposition: #NeverTrump means never Trump. In that editorial, we did not endorse a candidate, instead opting for an anti-endorsement of Trump. We will maintain our policy of not endorsing a candidate as a publication, but we will be printing endorsements of individual Bombs + Dollars writers and editors. As such, this functions as my personal endorsement.

First, the Republican Party doesn’t deserve to have Trump replaced on their ticket. Any attempt to replace Trump this close to the election would result in a three-way Syrian-style war of legal fighting that would make Bush v. Gore look boring. The Republican Party would be fighting both the Democrats and the Trump campaign. But aside from practical considerations, the GOP just doesn’t deserve to have a mulligan after having lost this election.

There have been many principled conservatives who knew Trump was a terrible person and an unelectable candidate. #NeverTrump had been saying loud and clear for months that the same man who insulted John McCain early on in his campaign for being a POW would implode. Imagine the surprise when he did!

Trump lost almost all of the public polls in the spring—and Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz won most of them. So now, one month before the election, when Trump is losing badly and a video just came out that would guarantee he couldn’t turn it around, much of the party’s elected Congresspeople finally wake up to the realization?

Sorry, Republican Party, but your denouncements at this moment look more opportunistic than principled. You should have let the #NeverTrump delegates vote at the convention on whether they could vote against Trump when they gave you an out. The party leadership didn’t even let them vote on it, and they even appeared to break party rules with arm twisting or outright fraud when they withdrew the petitions of three states. The Republican Party made its bed, and now it must lie in it.